Links - 1st July 2008

"It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people." - Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts, "In the World"

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The Stupidity of Dignity - "The [President's Council on Bioethics]'s... general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity... The problem is that "dignity" is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it... Even when breaches of dignity lead to an identifiable harm, it's ultimately autonomy and respect for persons that gives us the grounds for condemning it... A major sin of theocon bioethics is exactly the one that it sees in biomedical research: overweening hubris. In every age, prophets foresee dystopias that never materialize, while failing to anticipate the real revolutions. Had there been a President's Council on Cyberethics in the 1960s, no doubt it would have decried the threat of the Internet, since it would inexorably lead to 1984, or to computers "taking over" like HAL in 2001. Conservative bioethicists presume to soothsay the outcome of the quintessentially unpredictable endeavor called scientific research... Worst of all, theocon bioethics flaunts a callousness toward the billions of non-geriatric people, born and unborn, whose lives or health could be saved by biomedical advances... millions of people with degenerative diseases and failing organs would needlessly suffer and die. And that would be the biggest affront to human dignity of all."

Looking for a Few Good Men - Weird News Story Archive - "Sharon Garmize was a bit surprised when a letter addressed to Sam Garmize arrived at her home. It was from the U.S. Selective Service agency, demanding that Sam register for the military draft. Sam is a blue crown mealy Amazon parrot. “Sometimes we get a dog. Sometimes we get a cat,” said a Selective Service spokesman, noting that lists of 18-year-olds are purchased from private vendors. “This time we got a parrot.”"

Revealed after 50 years: The secret of the greatest-ever student prank - "It was probably the most ingenious student prank of all time. In June 1958, Cambridge awoke to see a car perched at the apex of an inaccessible rooftop, looking as if it were driving across the skyline... The then Dean of Caius, the late Rev Hugh Montefiore, had an inkling who was responsible and sent a congratulatory case of champagne to their staircase, while maintaining in public he knew nothing of the culprits. Unsurprisingly given their inventiveness, many of the group went on to enjoy illustrious careers - and Caius officials said the ' renegades' had turned into generous benefactors of the college."
Luckily this didn't happen in Singapore, or they'd be expelled and never go on to enjoy illustrious careers

Birthday party snub sparks debate - "An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party. The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination... the invitations were confiscated."
At least the 2 classmates don't seem to have been from a minority race, or we'd see even greater fireworks

Darth Vader spared jail for Jedi attack - "A man who dressed up as Darth Vader and attacked the founder of Britain's first Jedi church was spared jail today. "

22-Year-Old Virgin? Watch Your Health - "Those who lose their virginity at a later age -- around 21 to 23 years of age -- tend to be more likely to experience sexual dysfunction problems later, say researchers at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute's HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies... Men who lose their virginity in their 20s, in particular, seemed to be more likely to experience sexual problems that include difficulty becoming sexually aroused and reaching orgasm... "Clinically, we see many individuals who marry late and who have had little or no sexual experience have great difficulty with developing a rich and satisfying sexual experience within their relationship," said Eli Coleman, academic chair in sexual health at the University of Minnesota Medical School Program in Human Sexuality. "Sexual dysfunction is common. Difficulty in consummating the marriage is also a frequent problem," he added."
Even bearing in mind the causal issues, the moral of the story is almost the same about repression and moralism.
Addendum: New title of story - "Losing Virginity Later Linked to Sexual Problems"

Is this really just good fun? - "While some gays may brush Hard Gay off, it doesn't mean everybody's ignoring him. Indeed, Hokkaido Sexual Minority Association Sapporo Meeting, a support group for gay, lesbian and transgender people, has even formed a study group to discuss the issue. Opinions within the study group varied, but apparently most were surprisingly positive. A spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, said several members had called Hard Gay "funny" and "gay-friendly." One member said that Hard Gay garners support from many gays because -- unlike cross-dressers or the rare "out" homosexual seen on television -- he exhibits none of the feminine traits despised by some homosexual men. In fact, Hard Gay is as macho as they come. Take, for instance, the time he spontaneously offered to help a deliveryman stack cases of beer into a truck. (What better way to show off muscles?)... The chivalry bit apparently wins people over. "By acting so masculine, Razor Ramon HG helps dispel the notion that 'gay equals feminine,' " said the Sapporo-group member."

Less than Miraculous - "Just as the Virgin Mary seems to appear only to believing Catholics, so miracles tend to occur only when a requirement for them is specified. In order for "Mother" Teresa to be "beatified"-the technical first stage of full canonization-a miracle attributable to her posthumous efforts had to be certified. And a Bengali girl was duly found to claim that her cancerous tumor had vanished after a ray of light emanated from a picture of the departed nun... Any doctor will tell you that inexplicable or "miraculous" recoveries occur almost every day in major hospitals. This doesn't happen as often as, say, the discovery of a clot or a malignancy in an apparently healthy person (no divinity yet invented will claim the responsibility for that), but it does occur. The test of a "miracle," whether we employ the term either in its secular or its religious sense, is that there is no evident medical or scientific explanation for it. And since the Bible itself tells us that Pharoah's conjurors and magicians could work miracles (which I bet they couldn't), we have at least biblical authority for saying that the occurrence of a miracle does not prove the truth of any religion... The girl's physician stated plainly that she had not had a cancer. She had had a cyst. And the cyst had not responded to prayer. It had responded to a prescribed course of medicine. The patient's father concurred with this account."

The Debate Over Sainthood - "The most historic feature of this papacy may be the fact that Pope John Paul II hasn't just canonized more saints than any previous pope -- he's canonized more than all previous popes combined... “Somebody in the world had to represent the Devil pro-bono. And I was perfectly happy for that to be me,” says author Christopher Hitchens, who recalls being thunderstruck when he was called to testify in Mother Teresa's case. Hitchens, who specializes in the slaughter of sacred cows, wrote a book that took the 20th Century icon to task for perpetuating poverty with her militant opposition to family planning, and preaching that poverty was a blessing. “I met her. My impression was that she was a woman of profound faith, at least in the sense that one can say of anyone, who is a completely narrow-focused single-minded fanatic, that they are a person of faith... It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty,” says Hitchens. “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’""